The present invention relates generally to computer processing and memory, and more particularly to an exposed-pipeline processing element with rollback.
Computer systems often require a considerable amount of high speed memory, such as random access memory (RAM), to hold information, such as data and programs, when a computer is powered and operational. Memory device demands have continued to grow as computer systems have increased performance and complexity.
Computer systems can include local memory within processors as well as memory devices external to the processors. Processors that include large register files typically require a large amount of internal memory. Register files and processing pipelines within processors can be susceptible to soft errors such as bit flips. Rates of soft errors may be small per processor or per memory device but can become a significant reliability issue in large computer systems with complex and long-running programs. Inefficient or ineffective detection and correction of soft error conditions can reduce overall computer system performance. Recovering from errors in processors that use chained results which are not stored to registers may not be readily supported in typical computer systems.